Consumerist
chargebacks
Posts Tagged “
Consumer Rights
”
chargebacks
lawsuits
Class Action Against Credit Card Companies Conspiring To Make Us All Accept Mandatory Arbitration Revived
Ross vs Bank of America is a class action suit against a pile of banks alleging that they conspired to make all consumers accept mandatory binding arbitration clauses. It got a boost on Friday when the Second Circuit remanded it back to lower courts for further consideration (read the 15 page decision here). The previous court had dismissed the case because it felt plaintiffs couldn't prove actual injury. The Second Circuit reversed, saying, "A card that limits the holder to arbitration is less valuable (all other factors being equal) than a card that offers the holder a choice between court action or arbitration." What did these banks do that was so bad? The plaintiffs claim a broad conspiracy between all the credit card players to institute mandatory arbitration agreements and kill off all non-arbitration agreement cards on the market, a gross violation of antitrust laws. Here's the breakdown: More »
Good news for travelers: If you're bumped from a flight, you soon may be eligible to get up to $800 in compensation. This is up from the previous max of $400, an amount that had not been raised since 1978. [CNNMoney via Consumer World Blog]
big pharma
Johnson & Johnson is waiting to hear whether or not a judge in Ohio will allow any lawsuits over its Ortho birth control patch to move forward, and the New York Times says lawyers on both sides think there's a good chance he may find in the company's favor based on the doctrine of pre-emption. The argument goes that it's the FDA's responsibility to monitor the safety and labeling of drugs that go to market, and therefore if something goes wrong, it's the agency's fault and not the pharmaceutical company's.
More »
Pre-Emption Doctrine Would Make FDA Responsible For All Drug Problems, Shield Big Pharma From Lawsuits
Johnson & Johnson is waiting to hear whether or not a judge in Ohio will allow any lawsuits over its Ortho birth control patch to move forward, and the New York Times says lawyers on both sides think there's a good chance he may find in the company's favor based on the doctrine of pre-emption. The argument goes that it's the FDA's responsibility to monitor the safety and labeling of drugs that go to market, and therefore if something goes wrong, it's the agency's fault and not the pharmaceutical company's.
More »
consumer rights
38.6% Of Reported Debt Collectors Demand More Money Than Is Legal
Debtors have rights, and sometimes they get violated. The FTC released its annual Fair Debt Collection Practices Act report, part of which documents the number of complaints they get about debt collectors violating consumers rates. FTC received 70,951 DCPA violation complaints in 2007. Of them:
38.6% demanded more money than allowed by law
19.7% harassed consumers with repeated calls
9.2% used obscene, profane, and abusive language
2% called before 8am or after 9pm
.3% threatened violence
6.5% falsely threatened lawsuits
13.2% called third parties repeatedly to get information about the consumer
Here's more information about the FDCPA. You can lodge complaints with the FTC about FDCPA violations by calling filling out this online form or calling 1-877-FTC-HELP.
travel
Federal Court Overturns NY Passenger Bill Of Rights
A sad day for air travelers:
A federal appeals court has rejected a law requiring airlines to provide food, water, clean toilets and fresh air to passengers trapped in a plane delayed on the ground.Apparently the ATA thought providing "food, water, clean toilets and fresh air to passengers trapped in a plane delayed on the ground" was too onerous a requirement. New York is planning to appeal to the Supreme Court.The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that New York's new state law interferes with federal law governing the price, route or service of an air carrier. It was the first law in the nation of its kind.
The appeals court said the new law was laudable but only the federal government has the authority to enact such a regulation.
The law was challenged before the appeals court by the Air Transport Association of America, the industry trade group representing leading U.S. airlines.
Court overturns passenger rights law [AP] (Thanks to Brandon Savage!)
op-ed
Shopping Without Asterisks
America lies in slumber as a new swath of rights are violated, our consumer rights. The right to a fair deal. Companies have a right to try to make a profit. We have the right to receive the goods and services we purchase at the price and quality level advertised, and the right to seek redress if these expectations are not met. You earned that money with your sweat, and now you're just going to let someone take it from you? More »
consumer rights
Said No To The Doctor's Arbitration Agreement
Today I successfully objected to an arbitration clause and was still able to get the service. It was for acupuncture. I was filling out all the blah blah forms and then I came across the arbitration agreement. I wasn't even planning on this, I just saw it and got really uncomfortable. More »
small claims court
Suing Big Companies In Small Claims Court Is Fun And Easy
Taking a big company to small claims court sounds like a big hassle but reader Bill has done it successfully three times. He says the time and effort spent on taking a company to small claims court is far less then how it long it takes to get companies to fix above-average in complexity problems.
Here's his typical expenditure for a small claims suit: $24 and 45 minutes. The $24 is the cost to file a claim. The 45 minutes includes his total time of driving to and from court to file, as well as the time spent on the phone with the company when they call to settle.
See, in all cases, he hasn't even had to go to court: the company calls him up the day before the court date and gives him a settlement. It seems they prefer to do that then pay to fly a company representative who isn't fully versed on all the facts to court. Here's his true story of how he got what he deserved from Tmobile and Washington Mutual, without breaking a sweat.
More »
New Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut are preparing legislation similar to New York State's airline passenger's bill of rights. [San Francisco Chronicle via ConsumerWorldBlog]
consumer rights
What To Do With A Recalled Toy
In the best scenario, you'll never make it out of the store with a recalled toy—if you manage to find one still on the shelves, retailers (at least the big ones) will likely catch it at check out because the UPC code will have been flagged. But for those times when you do end up with something that has to go back to the Island of (Really) Misfit Toys, here are some things to consider to reduce problems on your end. More »
privacy
Tivo To Start Sharing Demographic Data
As a product, Tivo is easy to love, even root for. As a company, they're sliding further down that slippery slope of privacy invasion. According to the Wall Street Journal, today Tivo will announce that they're going to start making detailed demographic customer data available to advertisers. They already sell second-by-second data on viewing patterns, but so far it's been anonymous; now it will come with information about viewers' ethnicity, age, income level, etc. As far as we know, they have no corresponding plan to compensate their customers for selling this data. [Update: It turns out Tivo is pulling the demographic data from a group of 20,000 volunteers, and the compensation is the chance to win a free Tivo. (Thanks, Megazone!)] More »
tools
Know Your Passenger Rights When Flying In Europe
If you're flying in Europe, considering printing a copy of this consumer rights document (PDF) and putting it in your wallet. It's "Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004," but all you need to know is that it stipulates what airlines have to do when flights are canceled, delayed, or they lose your luggage. Like in America, they don't have to give you jack if the delays are due to weather. Airfarewatchdog Blog has a good breakdown of what the rules mean.
Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 [European Council via AirfareWatchdog Blog]
(Photo: FlyGuy92586)
unlocking
Court Allows Lawsuit Against T-Mobile To Proceed
On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court refused to review two earlier findings, which killed T-Mobile's final chance at blocking a lawsuit against its early-termination fees and practice of locking phones. This is the third time T-Mobile has tried to stop the case from proceeding, and both a state trial judge and a state appeals court have already rejected T-Mobile's claims that its customers were required by the terms of their contracts to submit to binding arbitration. More »
customer rebellion
Class-Action Lawsuits Filed Against Apple, AT&T Over iPhone
A class-action lawsuit was filed on October 5th against the unholy duo of Apple and AT&T, charging that they intentionally broke unlocked headsets via the last firmware update, and conspired illegally to monopolize parts of the mobile phone market by preventing consumers from using any services other than those provided by the two companies. The suit charges the two companies, either jointly or separately, with six formal counts, including "alleged violations of the California Business and Profession's Code, The Cartwright Act, The Sherman Act, The Federal Trade Commission Act, The Communications Act of 1934, and The Telecommunications Act of 1996, as well as rules and policies established by the FCC." More »
warranties
What Is "Lemon Law?"
Did you know that if something you own is defective and you get it repaired three times for the same problem, you may be entitled to a free replacement under "lemon law?" More »
Supreme Court Case Law Supporting Customer's Right To Record Customer Service Calls
In the extremely unlikely event that a customer were sued for recording and publishing a customer service call, we feel that the courts would decide in the consumer's favor, based on the following case law...
In the extremely unlikely event that a customer were sued for recording and publishing a customer service call, we feel that the courts would decide in the consumer's favor, based on the following case law...
